Abstract

When the Irish convention met in 1917. it set up a land purchase subcommittee
under the chairmanship of Lord Anthony McDonnell. Having examined
the financial arrangements of previous legislation, as outlined in Chapter
One, it came to the conclusion that these acts had failed, to complete lands
purchase because the interest rates of the land stock used were set too Low.
The committee then drew up a plan for the completion of land purchase, which
involved three basic principles, described in Chapter Two. All tenanted
holdings were to be automatica1ly vested, in the tenants, if thev did not
require modification. All untenanted land in congested districts was to
vest in the CDB, for the relief of congestion, and an automatic method of
fixing the price of land, was included to expedite the process.
These proposals were included in the 1920 land bill which never became
law. Meanwhile, agrarian unrest had become widespread, in the west after
1918. Chapter Three explains how the Dai1 was forced to intervene, and. hew
the Land Bank and the Land Settlement Commission did some useful short term
work, but thev had limited resources and had little long, term effectiveness.
Chapter Four details how the Free State government signed an agreement
in February 1923, which settled the questions of liabilities for annuities,
excess stock and bonus. It also included a promise bv the British to
guarantee new Free State land stock on condition that thev approved the
legislation. Patrick Hogan. Minister for Agriculture, realised the
political danger and told, a land lord-tenant conference that this credit was
been given without anv conditions, so the agreement had to be kept a secret.
Chapter Five relates the process bv which the 1923 land, bill was
formulated by Hogan, It adopted the basic principles of the Irish
convention's proposals, although the details were altered, considerably. The
1923 bill was not as generous to the landlords, but it was more generous
than some would have wished. The 1923 land act, as it became was the act
that completed land purchase, and finally removed, the landlord from Ireland.